


The High Priestess

by Lucius Parhelion (Parhelion)



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1930s, Cheetah guest star, F/F, Golden Age Hollywood, Historical, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-01
Updated: 2008-04-01
Packaged: 2018-11-30 20:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11471157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Lucius%20Parhelion
Summary: Why was Cassandra Claire, a respectable college professor, spending a sunny afternoon early in 1931 helping to hide a rogue cheetah and stolen goods from the possible attentions of the press and the police? Step one: have a dear childhood friend the rest of the world has named the High Priestess of Hollywood...





	The High Priestess

Attitudes do change. The past was a different country, and they did do things differently there. Nonetheless, such truisms hardly explain why I, a respectable college professor, spent a sunny afternoon early in 1931 helping to hide a rogue cheetah and stolen goods from the possible attentions of the press and the police. Even a star like Elaine-- But I see that I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I want to demonstrate how attitudes change, I often use Elaine Gray, the High Priestess of Hollywood’s golden age, as my example. These days my students grew up thinking of motion pictures as art and movie stars like Elaine as legends. But when I was young, most scholars mentioned movies with disdain if they talked about them at all. Many of my fellows thought my love of the pictures was low. My friendship with Elaine was lower still, almost disreputable, and even odder for a history professor than for my gender.

At the time, I believed that my colleagues were either stuffy or suppressing envy. I knew for a fact that there was nothing disreputable about Elaine. Now, more than three decades later, I’m still persuaded that I was right about my colleagues. I was merely wrong about Elaine. 

The Great Depression helped me discover my error. Well before the end of the spring semester in 1931, dire fiscal straits forced my university department to choose between a male colleague and me. He’d done well; I fancied that, with a book and two articles published to minor acclaim, I’d done better than well. But I wasn’t surprised when I was the one let go. As a man, he would have mouths to feed. As a woman, I could count on a man to feed me while I pursued my research, or so their reasoning went. What a pity, then, that I’d broken my engagement earlier in that same week. My fiancé Harold’s reaction to the idea of being my sole support had been a revelation.

“You’ll bear magnificent children,” he’d said at the nadir of our talk.

“I’ll send you invitations to the christenings so that you can admire them,” I replied before I yanked off his ring and handed it back to him.

I confess, I wanted to wallow in my misery for a while, but that would have been shallow. As the scale of what was then called a slump became all too clear, many in my position would have faced the streets, the breadlines, and the other grinding horrors of poverty. The worst I faced was Hollywood.

“went as predicted except more so stop,” my telegram read. “arriving 22nd on chief stop cassandra.”

“wonderful news stop,” the reply read, “disembark pasadena stop warmest embraces stop elaine.”

Wonderful: not the word I’d have chosen for my situation. If I’d thought she’d meant it, I’d have found a friendship ring to yank off and send west. However, I knew that Elaine Gray had to be wary of eavesdroppers. Her telegram had been for the public. There was a long train ride to be endured before I’d hear what my old friend, Marie Elaine Flot, would have to say in private.

***

It was already past noon when George Lumley, Elaine’s studio-appointed secretary, met me at the railway station. “I’m driving the Packard,” he said. Then he took another look at me. “Do you want to pause on the way and have your hair done?”

I lowered my chin and stared at him over the rims of my glasses, my eyebrows raised. He didn’t flush, as my students his age so often had; I’d found the gesture had its uses, given that I was barely thirty myself. However, his voice was apologetic when he said, “She’ll be taking you out on the town this evening.”

“After hours on sets for her and days on trains for me? Never mind. A showerbath will suffice, thank you. Elaine herself can enforce any other dictates of fashion.”

“I told her you’d say something like that,” George said, and I couldn’t hide a smile.

We each picked up a suitcase, the porter took my trunk, and the three of us together managed to wedge my possessions into the rumble seat of a green convertible coupe-roadster that might as well have had “Hollywood bigwig” painted on its doors. I’d imagine the gawkers were disappointed to see nothing more interesting than my dun and mundane self handed into the leather-upholstered passenger seat. Perhaps they thought I was George’s older sister. He had the sleek, blond looks of a juvenile lead.

“Good trip?” he asked, swinging shut the driver’s door and latching it.

“Pleasant, especially for these days.” I made sure my hat was firmly pinned in place. “Is all well around the household?”

“The next picture on Everest’s slate for Miss Gray is a costume production. Crinolines and highwaymen, that sort of tripe. She’s not sure about the script. But _Lost Lady_ is returning some very good numbers.”

“Oh, dear: more tour buses outside the house and autograph requests for Elaine’s signature stand-in,” I said in mock commiseration, and he chuckled before pushing the electric starter.

He told me more about the household’s latest adventures as we drove southwest toward Whitley Heights, where Elaine had her not-so-humble home. Not that she’d bought anything like Pickfair, but her Hollywood neighborhood masquerading as a Mediterranean hillside town held nothing like the battered Queen Annes of our New England youths. Elaine had also supported her new role as a lady with a villa by hiring a staff with lives of their own.

“--which is why Dave registered at Central Casting,” George finished his report.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Piron lost his job.” Mrs. Piron was Elaine’s housekeeper and Dave’s mother. The news about her husband was sad but no surprise: men of his race had been slowly hired and quickly fired even before the Crash.

He shrugged. “At least his wife still has work like the rest of us.” Then he winced. “Sorry.”

“Never mind.” I made some gesture. “Is all the news bad?”

“Depends on your point of view. When Miss Songaard went to Europe--” His attention was caught by the large clock on the facade of the bank we were passing. “Uh-oh. I’d better step this up if I’m going to get the car back to the studio on time.”

“That’s fine.” Placing one hand firmly on my hat, I said, “Do your worst.”

In the future, I’d remember not to give a young man in a fast car blanket permission. By the time we halted before the tiled steps leading up to Elaine’s door, I was grateful to get out of the Packard. Only pride kept me from staggering as I stepped down from the running board to the pavement.

George, on the other hand, was filled with what was locally known as vim. “Why don’t you head on inside? I’ll take care of your luggage.”

Never was I so grateful that Mrs. Piron was disinclined to chatter. She met me in the tiled front hall and her lips twitched, but she only asked, “Did Mr. George tell you about Miss Gray’s plans?”

“As part of his report, yes. We’re to go out on the town tonight.”

Her nod was sympathetic. “You might want a nap.”

“I do want a nap.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll put you in the blue room, so you won’t be woken by certain people fussing about with bags in your usual bedroom.”

“More like hauling around a steamer trunk,” George said cheerfully, dumping down my suitcases in the front hall before going back outside to the car.

Mrs. Piron shook her head and escorted me to a bedroom, one larger than the room I’d occupied during previous visits. This bedroom was decorated in the sparse, geometric style that Elaine favored rather than the older furnishings I’d come to know well. Nonetheless, the bed looked like a modernist version of heaven.

I was still sleepy when I went to bathe. While I’d been napping, Mrs. Piron had left a change of clothing and a bathrobe folded on a chair. I brought them with me into the bathroom, a cubist fantasia of chrome fixtures, squared-off basins, and Nile green tile. There was a door at the far end of the room. My temporary bedroom must be part of the master suite, so that far door would open into Elaine’s bedroom. For privacy’s sake, I threw the lock. Then, after putting my clean clothes on the stool of the vanity table by the near door, I stripped down and drew my bath.

Perhaps I should also have locked the door to the bedroom I’d been using, but how was I to know the odd bit of household news that George hadn’t finished telling me? In any case, I like to leave a door slightly open while I bathe, to keep the humidity down. I was drowsing in the large, marble bathtub when I heard a noise that made me sit up straight, sloshing water.

A very tall and thin spotted cat -- a cheetah, if I wasn’t mistaken -- sat atop both the silk-cushioned stool and my clothing, examining me with interest. I suppose the noise I’d heard was from its leap. It yawned, showing impressive teeth, before resuming its examination of me.

“You’re wrinkling my linen,” I told the cat. Don’t ask me why I was trying reason. The cat seemed unimpressed, if still interested.

Slowly, I stood up and reached for my glasses. The cat didn’t shift its golden gaze. Even more slowly, I tried using one of the jade-green towels and then putting on my short and shabby cotton robe. As I stepped out onto the thick bath mat, the cat made a noise. I froze, and then realized the sound was some kind of purr.

“You’re enjoying this,” I said. I imagine I sounded accusing. The purring noise continued. “You may as well move, then.” That far, the cat was not prepared to go. Somehow, I couldn’t see myself trying force.

Instead, the cat and I gazed at each other. “All right,” I said, “go ahead and stay there. I have other clothes.” Feeling determined, I marched away from the cat toward Elaine’s door and unlocked the lock. However, to my horror, as I reached for its knob, the door opened and an all-too-familiar voice said, “I’ll wash up before we have a cup of tea.”

“Cheetah!” I managed to say. I don’t think the emphasis was over-done.

Elaine stopped in the doorway, her perfect eyebrows slightly arched, not a lock of her chestnut hair out of place. Past her shoulder, I could see a thin, middle-aged woman, neatly dressed in lavender silk crepe. This woman must have caught sight of the cheetah, because her eyes went wide, her face went slack, and she emitted a breathy little gasp of what I assumed was surprise.

Not Elaine. Ever so slightly, the pupils of her dark green eyes widened. Only one who knew her well could have seen just how amused she was. Then she stepped back. When she stretched out a slim, graceful arm toward me in greeting, the jade bracelet around her wrist gleamed in the light from all the bulbs around the vanity table’s mirror. “Darling,” she said, in the voice like smoldering incense. “I see you’ve met Bastet.”

“Yes.” I let that one word stand for a multitude unspoken. Instead of taking her hand, I tightened the belt on my bathrobe -- better safe than sorry -- before I pushed my glasses up into place. They were fogging. “Is she quite tame?”

“Oh, very, or I wouldn’t be watching her while Miss Songaard is in Paris.”

“Good.” I marched back over to Bastet and said, “Off,” in a calm, firm voice.

Bastet gazed back, unmoving, but with something in her eyes that reminded me of Elaine. My own eyes narrowed. I pushed her off of my clothes. They were fuzzy but otherwise undamaged.

The other lady was still staring, less than helpful. Elaine turned, rested a hand on the woman’s wrist, and said, “Dear Mrs. St. James. Let’s have our cup of tea and give Dr. Putney a chance to get dressed. I’m sure the readers of _Screentime_ will love hearing about my visit from Ingra Songaard’s adorable cheetah.”

***

When I’d finished dressing and checked my makeup -- minimal lipstick, some powder -- in the mirror, I realized that I did need my hair done. Hollywood always made me conscious of my appearance. For now, I settled for putting my hair back into its bun before going down the main staircase to join Elaine and her visitor in the library.

I liked the room. Only some of the books on the shelves were leather-bound sets of the sort found where the hounds of interior decorating had been unleashed. The rest were a hodgepodge ranging from classic plays to cheap thrillers, all bought by Elaine herself. She spent enough time in the library that the clutter kept just ahead of the excellent housekeeping of Mrs. Piron. Most of the house was a stage-set for high-society photoplays, but this room belonged in a home.

Elaine and Mrs. St. James were drinking tea, and Elaine, noting my entrance, poured me a cup. “I couldn’t let poor Bastet be lonely, you see,” she said, obviously finishing up some tall tale for her interviewer.

“How kind,” said Mrs. St. James as she made a note.

What nonsense, I thought, as I took the cup and sat in an armchair. I’d love to hear the real story.

“We’re doing a feature in our next issue on the Stars and their Animal Friends,” Mrs. St. James added in satisfaction, closing her notebook. “This would fit in well.” Elaine made a vague, elegant gesture to indicate permission and sipped her tea, as did I. Earl Grey. Ah, well.

“Do you need anything else for your article about My Day on a Movie Set?” Elaine asked.

“No, I think I have all I want for right now. I’ll be in touch, of course, if you have any other tidbits of news for our readers.” The last sentence was oddly coy. But Mrs. St. James put away her notebook, and the silver pencil that went with it, in her purse. She took the last of the cookies before saying, “I’d love to have a chat with you, Miss Putney. Our readers are always interested in the Childhood Chums of the Stars.”

With an effort, I didn’t correct her address. Friendship imposes certain duties. “I’ll be visiting for a few weeks. Please feel free to telephone.” I offered her my hand, and was unsurprised to find her grip much stronger than you’d have expected from her appearance and behavior when faced by a cheetah. We all exchanged the usual polite farewells. Then she left, and Elaine chatted with me about my trip until Mrs. Piron came in for the tea things.

“She’s gone,” was Mrs. Piron’s only observation before she pushed the cart back out the library door.

Elaine cut short an anecdote about Dearborn Station in Chicago to say, “Thank God. Now we can talk.” Then she stretched, still graceful, but more in the fashion of a black cat on the garden fence than a Persian on its silk pillow. She perched her chin on the hands she’d crossed upon the arm of the well-upholstered couch and asked me, “How was the trip really?”

“Dire,” I said. Then I toed off my shoes. My feet still hurt from the businessman who’d trod on them the day before in the dining car. “Four days to contemplate no position, no paycheck, no college housing, and no fiancé.”

Elaine’s face stilled. “No fiancé?”

I held up my left hand and wiggled the bare ring finger. “As of ten days ago. Ask me for details when the rage has finished dying down.”

“Oh, ouch.” For a few seconds she was silent. Then she said, “We’ll have to do something about that.” She studied me. When she spoke again, her tone was teasing. “Director? Scriptwriter? Not a studio executive, even though they’d love how much you know about money.”

“Only in regards to eighteenth and nineteenth century trade. And I can’t even consider dating with a ring fresh off my finger.” In spite of myself, I smiled a little. “Not to mention that, as much as I appreciate your optimism, I think you’re overestimating my appeal, given the local competition.”

“You’re underestimating yourself. Never mind.” She mimed screwing up a piece of paper and tossing it away. As one might expect from a woman who’d made her mark as a player in silent films, she gestured with expressive skill. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. We’ll stick to worrying about tonight.”

“Do I have to get my hair done?” I’d meant the question to sound brisk, but it came out sounding pathetic.

“Yes,” she said firmly, and then relented, “but not today. Tonight’s dinner will be intimate.” Her expression now both mischievous and worried, she said, “Congratulate me, Casey dear. I’m getting engaged.”

 

II

 

At Elaine’s revelation, I cocked my head. “Real this time or faux?”

“Can’t you tell from my rapturous glow?” she asked, with an expression half-way between a smolder and a pout. At my eye-roll, she laughed and said, “He’s volunteering. Not that Publicity is displeased, mind you.” Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. “They’re sure I’ll get up to something if left alone too long.”

She had reason to be annoyed. For Hollywood, her amorous history was demure. The movie magazines had reported only one youthful marriage ended by her husband’s death, one broken engagement to a popular bandleader, and a handful of temporary attachments to lesser, if handsome, colleagues. Rumor, I knew, credited Elaine with a much larger game-bag, but she’d been discreet even with me.

Not a single adulterous affair or cut-rate Count marred her public record. Instead she’d played the intuitive sophisticate, the woman too wise to believe in the cads who’d exploited her capricious peers: part of her role as Hollywood’s High Priestess. To tell the truth, she’d likely avoided youthful mistakes thanks to her formidable mother, Irma. However, since Irma’s death nine years ago, Elaine had made her own choices for her own reasons, and her public facade had stayed spotless.

Her facade was opaque right now. I studied her. There was no sign of a rapturous glow that I could see. “Who’s your future fiancée?”

“Roger Zimmerman, an executive at Everest. He runs the primary production unit. His sense of the business is amazing, and he’s even a little artistic. He has a knack for selling the public what they should want while making them like it.”

Not love, then, or I’d have heard about his beautiful eyes, or his amiable temperament, or his amateur poetry, and not just his work. Pressing my fingertips to my temples, I intoned, “Madame Zola senses a reversed card in the suite of cups.”

“This isn’t love.” Her shrug was almost liquid. “But we understand each other, he and I.”

“There’s a cliché. Do you like him?”

“He’ll do. He’s not Jim, but who is?”

Jim had been her first husband, much older but handsome as Apollo, and everybody had liked him. I’d liked him myself when he’d scooped me up from my dormitory at Barnard and taken me out to dinner. His flirtation had been gentle and his jokes had been funny. I’d penned Elaine an enthusiastic letter before I went to sleep that night. Nor had I hesitated to steal time away from writing my dissertation to visit her after he’d died. I’d known she’d need the company.

Her second fiancé, though, only met me days before he made a pass at me that was both hard and hot, for reasons that I never did understand. I’d needed a hatpin to explain the word no. “As long as he’s not like Edward.”

“Oh, Eddie.” Her eyelids drooped, and she looked pensive. “No, he’s not like Eddie.”

“I suppose we’ll be going out to dinner this evening.”

“Yes, Madame, you’ll have your chance to read his cards.” She was up and onto her feet. “Now, let’s go see what needs to be added to your wardrobe over the next few weeks. You must have something that’ll work for tonight.”

“I thought the evening was supposed to be informal,” I protested.

Her glance was pitying. “Informal or not, you are back in Hollywood.”

***

In the end, I couldn’t escape. When we sat down to our table at the Cocoanut Grove, I was wearing my best silk frock, for all the good it did me. My usual style wasn’t correct out here. Not that I expected to compete with Elaine in the arena of glamour, but even Mr. Zimmerman’s suit had better fabric and better tailoring than my dress did. I didn’t have to play Madame Zola to know that there was shopping in my future.

“So, you’re Dr. Putney,” was Mr. Zimmerman’s opener. He won points with me by using my correct title. “Miss Gray speaks of you often.” His eyes turned cold and assessing, reminding me of portraits I’d studied of the early Bostonians who’d moved between ruthless money-making and admirable nation-building. Given his evident ethnic background, they’d have hated the comparison, but I enjoyed the similarity enough to return his gaze calmly and with slightly hiked eyebrows. His lip twitch turned into a faint smile. “I’ve read your book.”

I didn’t doubt him. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

“The chapters on indigo were good, very clear. Have you ever thought of writing for the public?”

“I have a popular history of trade on the frontiers forthcoming. I’d be happy to send you a copy if you wish, although you might be more interested in my article on medicine shows that will be published in this fall’s quarter of the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_.”

He settled back and waved off the cigarette girl. “Not canceled?” Like universities, publishers were trimming in reaction to the slump.

“No.”

“Then I’d like a copy of each.” This time his assessing glance was amiable. “You know, I think your former department let a big one slip off the hook.”

“I agree, but I’m prejudiced.”

“Roger, stop trying to interrogate her.” Elaine ran fingers down his forearm as she spoke. Turning toward me, she added, “He’s what passes in this town for an intellectual. In fact, he’s what passes in any small town for an intellectual.”

“I can tell,” I said, and smiled when he snorted appreciation at the ambiguity of our compliments.

I seemed to have passed his oral exam. The talk became more general, interrupted only by other members of the motion picture colony coming by our table to pay tribute to Elaine and -- as I was to call him by his command -- Roger. Around Hollywood, private dining did not mean eating away from the gaze of others. I merely wouldn’t see photos of our dinner party in newspapers or movie magazines.

“--although I do still love them,” I assured Roger toward the end of a discussion of just how bad historical photoplays could be. “My Tuesday evenings at the picture palace are sacrosanct.”

“That’s odd for an academic.”

I turned a hand palm up. “Centuries back, a great many people didn’t approve of the stage: too coarse, too shallow. The same sort is eager enough to see Shakespeare now.”

Elaine’s smile was slow and satisfied. Roger nodded. “Since you’re interested, I’ll make sure there’s a lot pass waiting for you at the studio gate. Elaine will like having company. She gets bored.” His left hand rested lightly, almost delicately, on hers for a moment, but then he shifted it to light a cigarette. “I’ll talk to Publicity, too. Will you ladies want dessert?”

“No,” Elaine said, “we’ll be trying on dresses tomorrow.” She stood up. “Casey?”

I was surprised to hear my old nickname used in public, but followed her into the ladies’ lounge willingly enough.

After a sultry young blonde had twirled to check her hem in the wall-length mirror and left, we had the lounge to ourselves. Elaine had washed her hands and repaired her lipstick before she asked me, “Well?”

“He’s not faking. I noticed his grip on Kant is stronger than mine.”

“We actors hate to admit it, but some of the executives are smart fellows with good educations. And Roger would never sell his mother into slavery for the sake of the studio. Dress her in crinolines to play Whistler’s mother, maybe. No worse than that.”

I sat down on the stool next to hers. “That doesn’t seem like much of a foundation on which to build a marriage.” My reflection frowned in the mirror.

Hers smiled sideways. “No?” She opened her compact.

“No. Somehow I can’t see you settling.”

“How romantic.” A shiny spot on her nose was ruthlessly eliminated.

“I don’t mean settling for a loveless marriage. Losing the rest of your freedom is what I can’t see.” I shook my head. “But now I’m making judgments like some old tabby-cat.”

“If anyone has the right to judge, darling, it’s you.” Her reflected gaze was level. When our eyes met in the mirror, hers seemed somehow to darken. She said, “Oh, damn the torpedoes.”

I raised my eyebrows in inquiry. She was about to speak again when the door opened and two matrons came in, both busy enough arguing politics to ignore Elaine.

She shook her head. “Let’s have dessert.”

***

I enjoyed the Peach Melba at the Cocoanut Grove. I usually enjoyed the accommodations at Elaine’s, but they weren’t quite up to snuff the next morning. As a way of being woken, I prefer an alarm clock to having my face washed.

Even with a damp cheek, I awoke thinking a Ford Trimotor was taking off next to my ear. In fact, Bastet had come for an early morning visit. Seemingly, I’d won her approval, and she’d made an effort to sneak into my room.

“Too wet and too loud,” I told her. Still not speaking English, she took criticism for compliment and purred louder. I gave up and reached for my glasses, which Bastet wanted to clean for me. So I got out of the bed, retiring into the bathroom. She tried to join me, but I was firm.

She also followed me when I went across the landing from my usual bedroom and upstairs to Elaine’s room. As I expected, both Elaine and Hannah, her maid and Mrs. Piron’s niece, were working on the morning beauty rituals. Over the years I’d learned that looking perfect was a time-consuming job. All the preparations, treatments, and exercises the studio experts demanded cost her two or three hours out of her already over-crowded days.

“Good morning, darling,” Elaine said, and then fell quiet so that Hannah could do something esoteric with a powder-puff.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

Freed from silence, Elaine said, “Oh, yes. I love these weeks off. Getting up late is a treat.”

I didn’t consider eight o’ clock late, but I didn’t normally work a six-day, sixty-hour work week, either. Mind you, my paycheck -- when I’d had one -- wasn’t a fraction of Elaine’s, but still. “I would have slept in, but someone had other ideas.”

“I take it Bastet’s been visiting.”

“I thought I’d shut my door last night.”

“Don’t bother. She finds more loopholes than a studio lawyer.” Elaine reached out and rubbed Bastet’s ears. “Besides, if she gets too frustrated, she scratches the furniture.”

“That’s not all she does,” Hannah said, almost sotto-voce.

Elaine grinned, and then held still again while Hannah used a metal contraption on her eyelashes.

“I take it Miss Songaard was feeling annoyed with you before she left.”

“You could say that,” Elaine said. “By some coincidence, Bastet’s handler is on vacation for the month while Ingra’s in Europe. Thank God Bastet really is tame, aren’t you, love?” she said to Bastet, who looked as innocent as I’d imagine is possible for a cheetah being rubbed under the chin and along the chest. “If I’d had to hand her over to one of the animal trainers at the studio, I’d never have heard the end of it. Miss Songaard is a natural actress.”

In other words, the woman didn’t just play a type on film, she also lived that role off film. Given that Miss Songaard was a potent combination of Pola Negri and Greta Garbo in her movies, I could understand why the High Priestess of Hollywood was willing to endure the Houdini of cheetahs for a few weeks. I shook my head and changed the subject. “Where will we be shopping today?”

“Not shopping. I have a photo shoot at the studio, and Costuming can see you at the same time.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Bullocks on Wilshire for formal wear and ideas, followed by someplace sensible for the rest.”

“That comes later. No, if the studio is taking an interest in you, they can do some of the work.” Before I could ask, she said, “George fielded a call from Mrs. St. James for you, seeking an interview. I’d bet she was reminded by Publicity. So you’ll be chatting with her after you and I have some pictures taken together this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind.”

Damnation, I thought. I’d visited Hollywood several times before without being noticed by Everest. However, since Elaine insisted on being eccentric enough to stay friends with a lady academic, I should have known they’d spot me sooner or later. I just wished they hadn’t decided this was the time to be alert. I’d hoped to nurse my wounds in private.

What I was feeling must have shown on my face. Elaine’s expression clouded. She almost bit her lip, but she remembered her lipstick in time. Still, her small slip softened me. “No, I don’t have much else to do except go over printer’s galleys and brood over my curriculum vitae.”

“At least dealing with the studio will be something new.”

“Perhaps I’ll forget to mention to Mrs. St. James that I’ve changed academic affiliations. Seeing the university’s name in _Screentime_ would annoy my former colleagues. Their opinions about movie magazines are excruciatingly pompous.”

Slowly, Elaine smiled. “Oh, go ahead. Make it easy to remember why I like you.”

***

As we descended the front steps, an unfamiliar, dark-skinned man pulled up Elaine’s Packard in front of the house. He got out of the driver’s seat and removed his cap.

“Thank you, Bernard,” Elaine said, taking the keys from him. “By the way, Casey, this is Bernard. Bernard, this is my dear friend, Dr. Putney.”

She’d given his name a French pronunciation. “You must be Mr. Piron. How do you do?” I offered my hand.

He took my hand as gingerly as if I’d extended a set and baited mousetrap, while favoring me with a smile that somehow managed to be pleased, amused, and reproachful, all at the same time. “Bernard, Doctor. And I am doing well, thank you.” Sure enough, he had the same, slight Creole accent as his wife.

“Bernard will be fixing a few things around the place,” Elaine said.

“The lock on the sitting room upstairs needs some work,” Bernard agreed, “as soon as I find where my little screwdriver went.”

“That might have been Bastet,” Elaine said, looking chagrined. “She likes small and shiny.”

About to walk around the car to the passenger door, I stopped. “Is feline kleptomania what Hannah was complaining about earlier?”

“I’d imagine,” Elaine said. She added to Bernard, “Please tell me if you need any replacement tools. This may happen again before Miss Songaard returns.”

“Rende service, baille chagrin,” Bernard said, and translated, “Doing favors brings sorrow. I’ll ask Sophie if the big cat keeps any hiding places.”

“Good idea,” Elaine said. She stepped up on the running board and through the driver’s door that Bernard was holding open for her. “Good luck,” she added.

During the short drive to Everest, I said, “I wish you’d warned me that Bastet was a collector.”

“I thought you should have a chance to get to know her first,” Elaine said.

“Our acquaintanceship is deepening by the hour. Somehow I doubt Mr. Piron will be the only person searching for stolen goods.”

“Bernard.”

“Bernard,” I said, and shook my head. “Although that form of address still seems odd, perhaps because I can’t imagine calling Mrs. Piron Sophie.”

“Since we’re in California, you can get away with using Mrs. Piron rather than Sophie. Just.” Elaine’s tone was dry.

“Then Mrs. Piron it is. After all, anyone who insists on her correct title should try to employ those of others.”

“Oh, Casey,” Elaine said with a laugh, “you radical.”

I pursed my lips, probably seeming prim. “Nonsense. I’m a moderate. I merely paid attention during Dr. Boas’ lectures at Barnard.”

“Well, I won’t argue.” Her face went calm and remote. “Grandpere was incorrigible. He’d worked the showboats, remember? Anyhow, Mother was furious when he told me stories about our late kin in New Orleans before the so-called War Between the States, and she had reason. I believe Mrs. Piron and I are likely third cousins.”

I looked at her in awe. My studies had taught me enough about French New Orleans to know she could be right, for all the good historic perspective would do her if word got around in the South. “Good heavens. There’s a pleasant discovery that your studio must have hated. How many heart attacks did you cause in your publicity department by sharing it?”

She’d stopped to make the left hand turn into Everest. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her quick glance at me, but she seemed pleased for some reason. “Why, not a one. I’ve been a very good girl.” Then her voice lowered to the smoky tones that I’d heard a hundred times in darkened theaters. “Although my virtue is still subject to termination without notice, just like my contract.” With a turn signal that was almost a thrust through the open window, she took the Packard between Everest’s famous marble pillars and pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of the studio.

 

III

 

There was, indeed, a pass waiting for me at the gate, a relief both to me and to the security guard who would have had to argue with Miss Gray. We drove through the studio streets for about a block and a half to a parking lot where all the spaces were marked “reserved”. To my surprise, after she’d parked her car and walked me to the costuming department, Elaine came inside. “You, too?”

“If I had to purchase every outfit in every picture they pose me for, I’d be driving a Model T. I buy clothes for leisure, not for work.”

“What happened to your weeks off, anyway?”

“Photographs and meetings have no season. But don’t think that I’m complaining. After all, I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher or a nurse, and Everest is a much nicer factory than the wool mill back home.” She turned to George, who’d appeared while we were talking and promptly started passing along instructions to the cluster of women with measuring tapes around their necks. “Darling, what word from Publicity?”

“Swimsuit, sophisticated robe, and a history book, Miss Gray: you’re studying for your next role poolside. Then both of you this afternoon at the Hollywood Bookstore, where you’ll be spotted by the press while browsing with your old pal and current tutor, Dr. Putney. So, stylishly academic duds for her.”

“I think that may be an oxymoron,” I said, and was justly ignored.

Instead, Elaine nodded. “Could be worse.” She turned to the nearest tape-wearing woman. “We’re in your hands.”

Her words were literally true, and stayed that way for hours. I wasn’t bored, though. Well-known actors came and went. At one point, a man with a single name and an obviously fake French accent arrived to survey me critically before leaving again. I felt like a mildly interesting piece of marble in a sculptor’s atelier, propped on a plinth next to the half-done David. By the time they were finished with me, even I was willing to be persuaded that I looked stylish.

Like the professional she was, Elaine had been dressed and made up, gone to have her photographs taken, and returned before I was done. When she came in, she walked around me critically, and I turned to track her movements.

“Good,” she said. With a shrug, she slipped off her silk lounging robe into the hands of a waiting seamstress. Then, completely at ease in a great deal of skin and a small amount of bathing suit, she went behind a screen to change.

I blinked after her before looking down at the book she’d left lying on the corner of my plinth. “ _Eminent Victorians_? I thought your movie was about British highwaymen.”

“‘History is more or less bunk,’” Elaine said from behind the screen, quoting Henry Ford. “At least, that’s Publicity’s view.” After a rustling interval she emerged, more conventionally clad. “Let’s go to lunch.”

***

On a previous visit, Elaine had taken me to the studio canteen so that I could gawk at her fellow players. I thought we’d eat there again. I was wrong. We ended up at the Golden Dragon, an obscure Chinese restaurant two blocks from the studio.

Seemingly, they were used to dealing with famous customers. We were hurried into a back room just big enough for two alcoves fitted with tables and a large glass bowl full of goldfish, perched on a pillar. I examined the fish and they examined me back. Then I opened my menu and looked over the usual list of chop sueys and sweet-and-sour everything. “Have you ever seen the real menu, the one in Chinese, I mean?”

“Only the time I came here with Rolly Winston, the director, along with Bill Tung, his chief cameraman. We were discussing how to light me for _Her Velvet Chains_ , and Bill ordered.” She raised her eyebrows and gazed upwards, obviously thinking, but somehow managing not to wrinkle her forehead doing it. “I had something called Tea Duck.”

“Hunan.”

“Is that one of the local cuisines? I can never remember the names. It’s like trying to come up with the names and jobs of all the muses.”

We distracted ourselves putting together a list of muses and forgetting Euterpe until the waiter took our order. I ordered Orange Beef, extra spicy, and Elaine decided to try the Tea Duck again. When he’d left, Elaine said, “I’m glad that, for once, I’m not working while you’re here.”

“It is nice. Mind you, I need to get into some of the local archives before I leave.”

“Wait three weeks. That is, unless you were planning on going home before then?”

“I should, I suppose, but Fa’s traveled so much since he retired and sold his interest in the bank that he’s thinking about selling the house, too.” I shook my head. “I’m not looking forward to telling him what happened.”

“Why? He’ll only get sarcastic about your department. And Harold.”

“Yes, but when I’m trying to recover my temper, his kind of commentary doesn’t help.”

“So stay here.” She reached over and put her hand over mine. “You wouldn’t be taking advantage, considering all you’ve done for me over the years. I owe you for the long visits after Mother’s death, and Jim’s.” She smiled wryly. “I might have married Eddie if not for you.” The smile faded. “Not to mention, you’re my closest friend.”

Suddenly shy, I looked away. “I need to find another teaching position.”

“I thought you’d applied at Tarzana College, just in case.”

“I applied at a number of colleges and universities. I’m not sure that anyone is hiring right now.” Elaine’s expression didn’t change, but I sensed a movement, almost too small to detect, through our joined hands. I felt my eyes narrow. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

She sat back slowly, and draped her arm gracefully along the carven back of the bench. “Not really, darling.”

“Perhaps I should rephrase my question as a statement.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

I frowned. “Is this another one of your--”

She who hesitates is lost. Before I could find out exactly what Elaine was up to, wonton soup arrived, followed by a group destined for the other table. One of the new guests paused when he saw us, said something to his companions, and came over to our table. He was a huge, heavy man with red hair who I recognized on sight: Sidney Beck, the comedian.

“Dearest Elaine,” he boomed. I forced my eyes not to widen. His voice wasn’t anything like the one he’d used in his talkies these past few years: much richer and much less, well, sissified.

Mr. Beck kissed Elaine’s cheek before she said to him, “Sid, this is my friend Cassandra Putney.”

“Dr. Putney,” he said, his eyes seeming to twinkle. “Haven’t I heard something about you, a cheetah, and Elaine’s bathtub?”

Pulling my glasses down very slightly, I considered him for a long moment over the rims. Then I said, “I’m afraid you’d have to ask the cheetah. I wouldn’t want to trespass upon her privacy.”

He clapped his hands with glee, a gesture that was also less innocent and more pointed than it looked on film. “Put in my place, and serves me right!” He bowed. “I apologize. May I pay for my intrusion with a dinner invitation?” Seeing my involuntary glance at Elaine, one that may have been just a touch panicky, he added soothingly, “I’d be delighted if both of you joined me at a small dinner party I’m having tonight. Nothing too formal, nothing too late. Some of the guests have early calls tomorrow.”

Elaine and I exchanged looks. Harmless, her eyes seemed to say. You’ll enjoy him. I turned to Mr. Beck. “We’d be delighted, thank you.”

“Ah, good.” He beamed. “And now, ladies, if you’ll excuse me.” After a little flourish, he went to rejoin the others at his table.

I asked Elaine under the cover of his booming voice, “Are you sure this is a good idea? What about Roger?”

“He’s busy tonight. And you can’t keep pretending that you don’t know me every time you’re in town.” I glared at her, and she shrugged. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I know you think it should be me pretending not to know you, but I’m bored with that, too. Frankly, your bathroom encounter with Mrs. St. James was a mercy. Sid’s dinner guests might not be up to sparring at your mental weight, but you can always keep yourself busy observing the strange customs of the Hollywood natives.”

“Marie Elaine Flot,” I asked, outraged, “exactly what kind of a snob do you think I am?”

“A backwards one,” she said calmly, taking the wind right out of my sails, “always in my favor.” While I stared at her, trying to decide if she was right or not, she reached out and placed her hand over mine again. “We need to talk, but not now.”

I considered her and sighed. “You’re right. We do need to talk.” The waiter arrived with our food. She squeezed my hand and let go. When he’d left, under the cover of the laughter from the next table, I added, “Although obviously not now. Is it always so difficult around here, finding enough peace and quiet for a heart-to-heart?”

Pausing a moment in her careful, delicate efforts with the lacquered chopsticks, she rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

“I’m learning fast,” I said, and after a moment we both laughed.

***

We returned home late that afternoon from the Hollywood Bookstore, Elaine with a bundle of books, and me with a tendency to blink caused by camera flashes. Aside from Elaine’s needing to translate “Hey, lady, show a little gam,” for me as “Dr. Putney, please move your left leg forward so that our readers can tell you have a knee beneath your skirt,” all had gone well.

The interview with Mrs. St. James wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, either. Elaine and George had given me a swift summary of the latest tall tales the studio had concocted about Elaine’s background, and reassured me that Publicity would have power of veto over the final results. Also, the tea served while Mrs. St. James and I talked in the library was orange pekoe.

“I understand that you met at the late Mrs. Gray’s charm school, when you and Miss Gray were both eleven,” said Mrs. St. James, pencil poised. George had told me that, in private, Mrs. St. James was a lot like Dorothy Parker gone Presbyterian. Just then, his assessment seemed as incredible as my answers would be.

“My father wished for me to refine my social skills,” I said. In fact, Fa wanted his sisters to stop bothering him about my wearing knickerbockers, playing mumblety-peg, and climbing trees. Charm school was their last desperate effort to civilize me since he wouldn’t let me be shipped off to a boarding school after my mother died. “Even as a young girl, Elaine’s talent was obvious.” Even as a young girl, the late Mrs. Flot was ruthlessly drilling her for a show business career, well aware of how beautiful Elaine would be. “Our shared interests drew us together.” Elaine had been indifferent about her mother’s ploy of shoving her at the daughter of the town banker until she’d found out about my stash of dime novels.

Mrs. St. James made notes while I imagined the spirits of future historians glaring at me.

“That’s right, you’re a teacher of history,” she said, tone bright.

“A professor, yes.” Imitating a certain church secretary of my youth, I simpered dryly. “I used to help Elaine with her homework.” What a whopper. Elaine was very bright, quite capable of writing her own essays. But I’d been told that a cardinal rule of publicity departments was that fans must be able to fantasize about picture stars as being just like themselves, if somehow exalted by sheer good luck and a benevolent studio. “She offered to help me run my fortunetelling booth at our hospital guild’s annual charity bazaar. After that, we were friends.” It was the single fragment of truth I gave her before I settled down and really got to work.

I discovered a new talent that day; as it turns out, I could have sold shares in the Roanoke colony. My sudden facility with lying was a bit scary. Still, the experience was also enlightening. I made a few mental notes for the article I was contemplating on Federalist-era land speculations.

Mrs. St. James yanked my attention back to the present by asking, “And is there anyone special in your life?”

“Aside from Elaine?” Her trilled laugh sounded like a canary had gotten free in the library. “No, I’m afraid not. There was someone, but...” I trailed off with a sigh. “These are difficult times.”

“I understand.” I certainly hoped she didn’t. But, on the bright side, if any of this got into print, Harold would be livid.

“For now, my work will have to suffice.” I tried to seem brave.

“Of course,” she murmured, making a note. Then she looked up and asked, “Did you and Miss Gray compare notes about your beaus?” and I was headed off into the Marvelous Land of Oz again.

“How does she stay so thin?” I asked Elaine after Mrs. St. James had gone. “She ate all the teacakes. Is arrant rubbish slimming?”

“If it is, you reduced by three pounds today.”

***

I couldn’t find my crystal ear-bobs. Bastet, on the other hand, was easy to find. She was lying on the bed, watching me get dressed for Mr. Beck’s dinner party.

I turned to her and my eyes narrowed. “Have you been stealing again?”

She stretched until she trembled, rolled over, and purred.

“I will not be diverted,” I told her, which wasn’t strictly true since I was now rubbing her chest in the style Elaine had demonstrated. Bastet approved, but that didn’t bring me any closer to my missing ear-bobs.

Elaine knocked on my half-open door.

“Come in,” I said, and, “I believe Bastet went off with my earrings while I was in the bathroom.”

Elaine was diverted. “Naughty,” she said to Bastet, who made a pleased, churring sort of noise. Hannah, trailing in behind Elaine, raised her eyes to heaven. “They’ll likely turn up, now that Bernard is on the trail. But we don’t have time to wait. Do you mind borrowing from me?”

“Of course not.”

With a tilt of her head, she studied me. Then she sat down on the bed, careful not to wrinkle her evening gown, a simple dress in pale-blue, floor-length velvet. “I wasn’t around when they fitted you for that outfit. Patrice has outdone himself.” They’d put me into midnight-blue chiffon with a much different cut than I was used to. The décolleté wasn’t too deep, but the fit was tight to my hips. All of a sudden I was well aware that my figure was unfashionably developed for the decade just past.

“I feel strange,” I admitted.

“Costumes will do that. Pretend you’re wearing your academic robes at a graduation or something, and you’ll be fine.”

Good advice. I tried walking up and down the bedroom a few times while keeping her words in mind. Elaine watched me critically, leaning back on one hand and idly petting Bastet with the other. During my first leg she turned to Hannah and said, “The lapis, do you think?”

“Mmmhmm,” Hannah said, tone decisive, and left the room to raid Elaine’s jewelry case.

I finished my fourth and last lap, and looked over at the bed. Bastet and Elaine were regarding me with identical, cryptic gazes. “Is something amiss?”

“Not with you, darling.” She pursed her lips, dark red and glossy from her evening shade of lipstick. “Are you sure you don’t want to recover from Harold while you’re in town?”

I walked over to the full length mirror next to the door. My face was the same as ever: my nose too long and pointed, my chin too determined, and my eyes an undistinguished blue. As always, my features seemed slightly alien to me. Perhaps I needed to spend more time looking at my reflection. “I suppose I’ll do.”

“I suppose you will. I took your word about J. B. Priestley at the bookstore, so you should take my word about this.”

She rose up from the bed and strolled over to me. Bastet leapt down onto the floor and padded out of the bedroom. Elaine placed a forefinger under my chin and tilted it up, even though we were much of a height. As close as she was, her eyes seemed green as forest pools and rather deeper. She was wearing her favorite perfume, Shalimar. Ever so slowly, she smiled. Then, after a long few seconds, her lips parted, and she said, in that low, smoky voice of hers, “Full formal make-up.”

“Damnation.”

“Too bad.” She grinned. Turning to Hannah, who’d come back in with the lapis lazuli bobs, she said, “We have her cornered. Quick, the lipstick, before she gets away.”

 

IV

 

“With business this rotten, it’s only a matter of time before box-office receipts fall off. When that happens, the bankers back east will tell our front-office fellows to break out the axe.” A murmur of agreement rose around the dinner table. The speaker was Bill Killingsworth, a director at Everest best known for his comedies.

“They’ll start dumping contracts right and left, swinging away at anyone who’s put a foot over the line.” This gloomy prediction came from Betty LaMonte, a famous actress on her own account, as well as Mr. Killingsworth’s wife.

The two of them were the only married couple at the table. Otherwise, Mr. Beck’s guests were Elaine and I, the character actor Nigel Cole, a Mr. Gerello who Elaine assured me was Mr. Beck’s agent, and Miss Blake, a rising young actress who was Mr. Gerello’s date for the evening.

We were talking about the slump, a subject that no one could entirely escape in 1931, not even in Hollywood. Mr. Beck said, “I’m not sure if I’d bother to dodge the axe. The many, many flights of stairs I fall down during my pictures seem to get longer every year.”

His guests protested. Mr. Beck’s pictures were much loved. Mr. Gerello spoke for us all when he leaned back in his chair and said, “I do not think that, after all the work you did coming up with a voice for the talkies, you should give up so easily.” He was remarkably Runyonesque, unmistakably from Manhattan.

Mr. Beck shrugged. “In any case, the matter is out of my hands. As you have every reason to know, dear Angelo, my contract was renewed three years ago.” His gaze swept around the table. “All of we players are presently leg-shackled, I believe. Except for you, Elaine. Isn’t your contract up for renewal?”

“Oh, yes,” Elaine said, and took another sip of her martini.

“I thought there were an awful lot of flacks hanging around your last set,” Mr. Killingsworth said. “Considering how good your numbers still are, they must be chasing after you with their tongues hanging out.”

“The studio’s been talking to me,” Elaine agreed, rather vaguely. “I’m not sure what I’ll decide yet. After all, I don’t really have to work. Not any more.”

“You mean there’s someone in this town who had enough sense not to dabble in stocks?” Mr. Killingsworth asked. After groans and protests of “Not the market, again,” by popular demand our topic of conversation wandered through the possibilities of color film and then veered off toward the Empire State Building.

Thus far, the dinner party had been enjoyable. The food was excellent, the drinks authentic, and the company amiable. My only concern was a persistent feeling that I’d missed saying something, as if my fellow guests, otherwise well disposed toward me, were waiting for me to speak words that weren’t required but would soothe. I could have produced much the same effect in a room full of academics by refusing to mention in what discipline I had my doctorate and at what university it had been awarded.

By the time we stood up from the dining room table, this nagging sensation had left me nervous. The Killingsworths, Mr. Beck, and Mr. Cole made up a table for bridge. Elaine touched my upper arm and said, when I started, “Angelo and I need to talk for a while before we sit down to play. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Your contract?” I looked across the room toward where Mr. Gerello was delivering what I assumed was the same message to Miss Blake.

“In a manner of speaking. Sam Rickman--” her agent “--is retiring and Angelo’s taking over his clients.”

“Are you going with him?”

“Oh, yes. Not every change is a bad change.” This last sentence was directed toward Mr. Gerello, who’d come over to join us.

“That is a very gracious statement,” Mr. Gerello said to her, and added, “Excuse us, Doc,” to me.

“I’m sure Dr. Putney and I can find some way to distract ourselves,” Miss Blake said. Elaine shot her a quizzical look, but allowed herself to be escorted out of the room by Mr. Gerello, after he’d poured them each another drink over at the sideboard.

“Let’s chat for a while,” Miss Blake said. “I love playing bridge, but I hate watching it.”

“I’m in complete sympathy,” I said, and allowed her to escort me to a large leather couch in front of the unlit fireplace on the other side of the room.

Miss Blake was an interesting woman. Her blonde and pert athleticism went well with her roles at Everest. There, she was becoming a popular star of B-level adventure films, the sort of short westerns and jungle epics that, every week, annoying younger brothers were parked in theaters to see at Saturday matinees across the country. Her anecdotes about location shoots were amusing. I parried her questions about Elaine with the ease of long practice and kept up my side of the chatter with stories about some of the odder historians that I’d collided with over the years. “--the parrot also swore worse than a sailor, but Dr. Moore insisted its language was further proof that it had, in fact, belonged to Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”

“I thought you said it had an American accent when it recited poetry.”

“If you count three or four verses of ‘Eskimo Nell’ as poetry.”

She laughed. “Not until after the fifth drink, I don’t. Speaking of which, a refill?”

“Just ginger ale, thank you.” I wasn’t used to good liquor, and the prices at speakeasies and clubs kept my consumption of bad liquor to a necessary minimum. For my generation, I wasn’t much of a drinker.

After half a glass of ginger ale and more pleasant trivia, she said, “It’s stuffy in here. Do you want to get a breath of air?”

“All right.”

“Sid’s dogs are in their kennel.” She got up and straightened her skirt. “And his gardeners are doing nifty things with his plants, well worth seeing.”

I looked around at the style of the sitting room. “Do his gardens also have a Moroccan motif?” Yes, I was being dim.

“More oriental, except for the orange trees.”

She led me out onto a terrace that overlooked said trees. The full moon had risen, and the scent of eucalyptus and orange blossoms were carried toward us on the slight, cool breeze. We leaned on the railing and discussed shrubbery. Miss Blake was standing very close.

“Is this breeze too much for you?” I asked.

“No, I’m a little chilled, I guess,” she said, and smiled up at me. Even in the moonlight I could tell she had dimples. I blinked at her through my glasses: suddenly she looked demure, not a trait I had observed in her until now. For some reason I was also noticing that I was two inches taller than she was.

“Perhaps we should go inside.”

She put a hand on my forearm. “It’s a beautiful night.”

Behind me, someone coughed. Quickly, I turned. Elaine said, “Sorry to take you away, but it’s time to go, Casey.”

I had a good view of her face in the light spilling out from the windows onto the terrace, and now I felt the chill. Her face had the look of the High Priestess. It’s not a look that I saw much except up on a screen: calm, mysterious, with only a hint of something that might be pain or might be fire somewhere deep within the eyes. I was more used to glares and grins from her, so I worried when I saw the famous expression. “Of course,” I said. Then, to Miss Blake, I added, “I’m sorry to interrupt our conversation.”

“That’s all right,” she said, taking out a gold cigarette case. “Now that I’m paying attention, it’s awfully chilly out here.” Deftly, she slid the cigarette between her lips and lit it with a lighter she produced from her clutch. She blew smoke, and then said, “I’ll be going in after this.”

Reassured on that account, I followed Elaine inside. As we entered the house, I asked, “Bad news from Mr. Gerello?”

Elaine, who had waited for me to be done with Miss Blake before stalking in through the French windows, paused, and then turned. Her expression was still distant as she studied me, but her voice seemed somehow bemused when she said, “No. Not really.” She turned away and said over her shoulder. “We can talk out by the car.”

***

After a quick farewell to Mr. Beck, we got Elaine’s wrap and my coat from his houseboy, and went out to the Packard, which was parked on the semi-circle drive in front of Mr. Beck’s house. Elaine stopped beside the running board and studied her car as if she’d never seen it before now. “You’re going to have to drive, I’m afraid. One drink too many. No, two too many. Too, too, tedious, and I’m getting sleepy.”

Ah, here was the problem, I thought. “Sensible of you.” Then I sighed, and added, “I’ve never driven a Packard. I hope you like slow trips.”

“Still faster than walking.” She examined the car again. “Good thing the top is down. I want some fresh air after all that.”

“Miss Blake also noticed the house was stuffy, but the terrace seemed to help. Maybe this drive will do the trick for you.”

Elaine turned to me, astonishment visible on her features in the moonlight. Then she stepped closer to me, seemingly to study my face again. I was so relieved to see the High Priestess vanish that I needed some seconds to react after she said, “For a first-rate scholar, you can be thick as a brick.”

The crickets chirped three or four times before I finally asked, “What do you mean?” But I was already harboring a suspicion that I didn’t want confirmed. I hate being dim.

“I thought I was reading that situation right,” she said, shaking her head, “although things moved awfully fast. You must have made a hit. Or I was off with Angelo for a lot longer than I thought. No more of Sid’s good gin for me. I lose track of time.”

Holding up a hand for her to stop, I said, “I’m still back at exactly what you’re implying.”

“I guess she wasn’t really trying.” Elaine leaned forward and adjusted my neckline at the shoulder seam. “After all, ten minutes in Hollywood teaches you how to move fast.” Her hand stilled and then shifted slightly to rest on my shoulder.

“You do mean what I think you mean.”

“Me, I would have closed the deal before the spoil-sport showed up.” Her hand shifted again, the fingers slowly slipping into my hair, dislodging hairpins left and right. Her other hand slid around my waist, warm and firm through the chiffon of my dress. The tight fit of the dress suddenly seemed tighter, especially around the bodice. “Even in front of a camera, I can work faster than she did.”

I stood staring at her like a perfect ninny, my mind a blank. Closing the last, small gap between us, she kissed me.

There wasn’t a chance that I wouldn’t react. I’ve never refused a dare from Marie Elaine Flot, not even when the dare was dangerous. Her lips on mine were firm and familiar, knowing and determined. Surrounded by the scent of orange blossoms and Shalimar in the moonlight, entwined with the supple warmth of Elaine being exasperating, I didn’t resist. I responded.

When I kissed her back, her lips parted with something between a gasp and a sigh. But I was still responsible for what happened next. I hadn’t wasted all the years between my first kiss -- a chaste but mashed affair, just for practice, with Elaine herself -- and now. Quite deliberately, I sought her tongue with my own. Her mouth tasted like gin, but I didn’t care. In the long seconds that followed, nothing counted but soft heat, silken skin, and the nearness of Elaine.

If I hadn’t shifted my stance and backed into the edge of the running board, I’m not sure what would have happened next. But, at the blow against the back of my leg, I came to myself and was appalled to find that my right hand was on the side of her bodice. Her own hands were on my back, well below my waist. I pulled away. Her lips were still parted and the pulse at her throat beat fast. I had to pause before I could find enough breath to speak.

I don’t want to think about what I could have blurted out, but my luck didn’t abandon me. During the pause, I could see her expression quite clearly. She was both stunned and afraid, a graceless enough mix of emotions that I knew she wasn’t acting. Seemingly, Elaine had surprised herself as much as she’d surprised me. So I said, my voice hoarse, “I’ll need to think about this one for a while.” I touched my upper lip with my tongue to find it swollen. “Gosh, you’re good.”

“Oh, Casey,” Elaine said. “That’s so...” She trailed off. Her eyes seemed to darken. In smoky tones somehow more serious than usual, she said, “Your lipstick is a mess.” Delicately, she touched my lip, where I’d checked it, with a forefinger. Then her stance shifted like a cat gathering herself to leap.

Behind us, we both heard a door close and voices speak, loud and cheerful, in the dark. I recognized the Killingsworths, Mr. Cole, and Miss Blake. I truly didn’t want to see, or be seen by, Miss Blake.

We stepped apart. As if from a distance, I heard myself say, the words quite calm, “I don’t hear Mr. Gerello.”

Just as calmly, she replied, “He overnights with Sid, of course.”

“Ah,” I said. “Perhaps we’d better move the car so that the others can leave.”

The minor difficulties of dealing with the Packard delayed conversation nicely until we were driving downhill toward Hollywood Boulevard.

Elaine was the first to break the silence. “I hate talking seriously in cars, and I really hate talking seriously when I’ve drunk too much.”

“Don’t give me an excuse to skip this conversation,” I said. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m panicking.”

“Are you?” There was a few seconds of silence before she said, “You panic better than anyone I know, darling.” When had Elaine’s casual “darling” become serious? And why hadn’t I noticed when that happened? She continued, “I’m glad because my other problem with too many martinis is me falling asleep.”

“You’re sleepy? After that?” I cleared my throat, “Not that I’m fishing for, um--”

The chuckle that interrupted me could only be called sultry. “You don’t need to fish for compliments. Yes, even after that, I’m sleepy.” She paused to yawn. “Honestly, we will talk, but talk can wait a little while longer.” With those words, she seemed to curl in on herself in the passenger seat and doze off.

Amazing. My mind was so full of clashing thoughts that I felt as if I wasn’t thinking at all, and here was Elaine, sleeping. If I hadn’t known her for so long, I’d be furious. As it was, my voice sounded exasperated when I said to myself, softly, “I’m glad somebody thinks everything will be all right.”

To my surprise, I felt fingers brush across my shoulder. Voice drowsy, Elaine said, “I knew everything would be all right as soon as you started to panic.”

Without any more explanation than that, she was out like a light. I was certainly glad that Hannah was around to help me get Elaine awake, upstairs, and into bed. Unlike Elaine, I’d probably be up, staring at the ceiling, for hours.

I was asleep five minutes after my head hit the pillow.

 

V

 

When I woke the next morning, I was filled with an oddly familiar mixture of dread, determination, and joy. Still half asleep, I hunted after the elusive feeling. Ah, it was what I’d felt during my dissertation defense, while I’d stood in a stuffy room where the three members of my committee sat behind a battered wooden table, their presence both acknowledging my work and judging my worth. I remembered writing Elaine afterwards that--

Elaine. I sat bolt upright, throwing the covers to one side. Bastet, who’d been lying on the foot of my bed, bleated protest.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, distracted. She stretched, and I smoothed her fur for a minute or two while I thought.

It didn’t take me long to decide that I was laying bricks on sand. I still needed to talk to Elaine, and the part of me that wanted to hide under the bedclothes was just going to have to cope with this crisis.

Getting up, I went into the bathroom and got ready for the day, my motions automatic. When I looked at my freshly scrubbed face in the mirror, I frowned and reached for my new box of face powder. Then I blushed, realizing whose opinion I was considering. Obviously, this was going to be awkward. I still finished my make-up before I went to find Elaine, though.

She wasn’t in her bedroom. Instead Hannah was there, on her hands and knees, hunting for something beneath the bed. Hearing me enter, she straightened up long enough to offer me one of my crystal ear-bobs. “That cat is shameless.”

“Thank you,” I said, rather blankly. “Is Elaine already up?”

“She’s downstairs having breakfast.” Going back to her search, she said, “Aha!” and came up with a hand mirror.

“Isn’t that rather large to be abducted?”

Getting up and dusting herself off, Hannah said, “Not as big as Miss Gray’s whole sterling silver brush set.” There was a note of doleful pleasure in her reply that made me realize she was enjoying herself.

I suppressed a lip twitch and said, “Oh, dear.”

She nodded in gloomy satisfaction and bore off her booty to the dressing room.

Elaine was in the dining room, deftly spooning up soft-boiled egg while reading _The Hollywood Reporter_. Nervous, I stood in the door for a moment, until she sensed my presence and looked up. For a moment her face was that beautiful and mysterious mask, but then her expression relaxed into a sheepish smile.

I found I was smiling back. “Elaine--” I said, stepping into the room, just as Mrs. Piron came in from the kitchen with another table setting.

Elaine’s smile turned wry. “Good morning, darling.”

“Good morning.” I realized I was still carrying the ear-bob, and set it next to my place on the ebony table. “Bastet has been busy.” I sat down.

“Thank heavens she’s so dear, or someone might have lost patience and snuck up on her with Jim’s old revolver.”

Mrs. Piron hmphed agreement.

“She’s lovely, but she does shed,” I pointed out. I had the fur on my clothes to prove it.

“That, she does,” Mrs. Piron said, and left to get my breakfast, having had the last word on the subject.

“I suppose I’ll have to give her back,” Elaine said, a touch wistfully. Then, face grave, she regarded me. “Do you shed?”

I tried looking over my glasses, but my lips twitched. So I yielded and laughed. Elaine joined me and something in the room seemed to relax. Elaine said, “I know she’s driving the household mad, but it’s not her fault that Ingra decided to be petulant.”

“You must really have upset her. That’s quite the subtle revenge.” I stopped. My eyes widened. Elaine paused in lightly buttering toast. “Should I even ask the question I’m thinking?”

“No, you shouldn’t, and yes, we did.”

“Truly?”

“Like riding a carousel. Beautiful to look at, exciting at first, but after a while, way too many ups and downs.” She looked at her plate, and then looked at me. “You, on the other hand...” Without finishing her sentence, she added a tiny dab of strawberry jam to the toast.

I’d parted my lips to demand that Elaine continue, when Mrs. Piron came in with my plate. Elaine finished spreading jam and caught my eye. The way she ate those first bites of toast, while Mrs. Piron was over by the windows adjusting the drapes against the morning sun, should have earned either an academy award or a condemnation from Will H. Hayes. Unable to comment or glare, I settled for giving the shell of my soft-boiled egg a good, firm tap with the bowl of my spoon. Then I lopped off its top with a knife. Elaine grinned.

I did have most of breakfast to consider what she was implying, which might have been what she intended. The entire matter still made me queasy, but not about her. I couldn’t get the concepts “best friend,” “deviant,” “Elaine,” and “bad” to fit together in any way that I could believe. “Deviant” and “Casey” fit together quite well, though. Anyone who’d crushed as long and as hard as I had, has to have wondered once or twice. And men had never quite lived up to their advertising, although that had been a fairly widespread complaint among my friends, including the young matrons. I was certain my friends weren’t all, well. That way.

I swallowed without needing to and looked up from my plate. Elaine turned a page in the Reporter and glanced over at me. I wanted to kiss her, to touch her, so very much. This time, when she smiled, there was a breathless quality to her expression. She put down her newspaper.

George walked into the dining room. “Good morning, all. How was the party last night?”

***

After George had been sent out the front door on a series of errands that were probably necessary, Elaine and I removed to the library. I took a sip of tea and looked enquiringly at her.

“Bullocks on Wilshire today,” she said firmly.

“After yesterday, I must have enough clothes to last for the next decade,” I said. “It seems wrong.”

“You’ve been reading Max Weber again?” At my stern look, Elaine said, “I’ll write a check for the amount you spend today and donate it to someone who feeds the unemployed. There’s this darling man downtown named Clifton with a cafeteria--”

I interrupted, unwilling to be distracted by the virtuous Mr. Clifton. “You’re wheedling.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s the only way I’ll ever get you to a proper hairdresser, even before we move on to more vital concerns.”

Now I knew where we were going. “Making me look like I belong in Hollywood won’t keep me here.”

“No, but it’s a step.” She stretched out her legs along the couch. The silk stockings she wore flattered her. “I’m glad you finally realize that I want you around. Wanted you around, even before you-know-what.”

“I did realize, but I had a job. So do you, for that matter, and never the twain, etcetera.”

She hesitated before she spoke again. “Professors have vacations. More of them could be spent with me.”

“I don’t want to be a bother,” I said automatically. Catching myself, I said, even as she snorted, “All right, that was silly, but I haven’t finished adjusting to recent events. Chalk it up to my missing the lessons you learned by arriving in Hollywood at sixteen.”

“Mmm,” she said dreamily. “Hollywood’s not the only place to get an education. Maybe I should have defied Mother and studied English. We could be living together in a lovely little cottage by one of those ivy-covered women’s colleges, while telling the other faculty members dreadful lies about the men who got away.”

I blinked. One heard nasty tittle-tattle, of course, but I’d ignored such rumors. I’d never stopped to think that such a scandalous situation might some day sound wholesome and appealing. “I’m afraid that your scenario’s about as likely as my having chosen to work as a photoplay writer.” Right now, the notion of sitting in front of a typewriter, trying to find a pictorial way for the Boy to meet the Girl while half-wondering what time Elaine would be picking me up for tennis, seemed utopian.

Elaine knew what I was thinking, too. She smiled with satisfaction. “Come over here?”

I got up and went to stand by the couch where she reclined. She reached up and took my hand. I said, “You’re enjoying this.”

Out in the hall, the telephone rang. I heard brisk footsteps as someone came to answer it.

“I’m enjoying part of this,” she said. “The rest?”

Bastet came bounding in from the hall with something in her mouth, followed by Bernard. He paused long enough to say, “Sorry, Miss Gray,” before chasing her out through the open door into the dining room. Hannah stepped into the hall doorway. “Your agent, Miss Gray.”

Elaine let go of my hand and got up from the couch. “As for the rest, I want a bigger paycheck.”

***

Elaine’s telephone call from Mr. Gerello lasted long enough for me to select a book from the shelves on the history of the California missions, sit down on the couch, and become absorbed. I wondered if the records of their trade in hides might be stored in the local diocesan archives or were preserved by the Franciscan province.

“There you are.” Elaine’s voice.

“Mmmhmm,” I said. She took my book away. “Don’t you dare lose my place.”

She sat down on the other end of the couch, but not before picking up a bookmark from an end table and marking my page. “Now, then. Where were we?” Toeing off her shoes, she put her feet in my lap.

I glanced at the door to the hall, and then over at the door to the dining room, now both closed. Even so, I tapped her left foot with a forefinger and said, “Not here. Talking, rather.”

“I can sit and talk at the same time.”

“This doesn’t really qualify as sitting.” Still, I took one foot and began to rub it. Elaine let out a small, pleased noise, not nearly as sensual as something from her talkies, and all the more effective for that. Concentrate on conversation, I told myself firmly. “Sore feet?”

“Always, for all sorts of reasons. For example, we have to keep absolutely still during fittings for historic costumes. And that’s better than when I’m actually wearing the stuff and waiting for shots. No eating, then, no sleeping, no reading, and no telephone calls.”

“No reading? Oh, don’t explain.” I reminded myself of my list of important topics, shied away from the first one, and tried the second one. “About Tarzana College. Yesterday at the Golden Dragon--” The telephone rang out in the hall, but I ignored it. “--I had the distinct feeling that you knew something that I didn’t. Or had done something.”

Faintly, through the closed door, I heard a feminine voice talking. Good. Someone had answered the phone.

Elaine stirred. “You rat. You know I can’t resist having my feet rubbed.”

“Think of it as a painless incentive to confess.” Well, mostly painless. The warmth at the base of my stomach would eventually become annoying if frustrated for too long.

She sighed. “All right.” Her toes curled. “Perhaps I talked a little with the President of Tarzana College.”

“Elaine!”

“Oh, dry up. Your name wasn’t mentioned; there was still Harold-the-fiancé, after all. I merely said that I was interested in women’s education and noted what a pity it is that we are so underrepresented on their faculty.”

“How big a donation?”

She smiled, all mischief. “It’s not the size of the bait, darling, it’s the strength of the line.” She nudged me with silk-clad toes. “Other foot?”

“Serve you right if they hire Dr. Glassmer from Chicago,” I told her darkly. Out in the hall, two feminine voices were now conversing. I started working on her other foot.

“Hmm?” she inquired, and leaned back a little more against the cushions. The expression in her eyes was both amused and languid. “Is Dr. Glassmer youthful and _au courant_ enough to engage the admiration and attention of young women? That’s very important for an educational establishment with female undergraduates. Our future wives and mothers need intelligent role-models.”

“I can’t believe you said that to him.”

Her eyes half-closed. “And how was this different from someone coaxing darling Penelope Hix into spending most of her winter break from Cal coaching me in Elizabethan language and history?”

I felt myself flushing. “That wasn’t anything important.”

“Really? It was awfully helpful, my not making a fool of myself in my first talkie with literary pretensions.” She stretched, and added, “I see this as letting you and your friends like Penelope compete on an even footing with the boys. I didn’t need Hollywood to teach me that it can take one talented female plus much money to equal one talented male, when men are the judges.”

Out in the hall, the two feminine voices had been joined by a masculine voice. The volume had raised enough to recognize Mrs. Piron, Hannah, and George. I stopped rubbing. Elaine frowned and asked, “Now what?”

She swung her feet out of my lap. “To be continued.” After putting her shoes back on, she got up, went over to the door, and swung it open. All the studio training does teach one how to make an entrance. The voices fell silent and then started up again as she walked out into the hall.

I took a minute to calm my breath, straighten my skirt, and rearrange my expression before I followed. No one was paying attention to me, thank heavens. Everyone was trying to explain something to Elaine.

“Wait,” she said, raising one hand. “Let’s make sure I’m clear. Bastet ran through Mr. Tupper’s French windows, stole a crystal decanter stopper, and then kept going into his kitchen and out the back door, which was ajar. Soon after, Bernard came through in the other direction, dropped off the stopper, but didn’t pause long enough to apologize before he left in hot pursuit. I don’t see the problem, aside from the missing apology.”

“Yeah, but Tupper wants a big, fancy apology,” George said, for once sounding gloomy. “He always does, for any little thing. Otherwise, he calls the cops and complains.”

“So?” Elaine asked.

“The man explains what you did wrong forever. And some of his ideas of what stuff is wrong...” Hannah said. Mrs. Piron nodded grimly.

Elaine said, “He never does that to me,” and then sighed dramatically when all three of them looked at her. “I’m not going. He does tell me every reason why he admires my artistry, which is, I assure you, worse.” The front doorbell rang. “Someone has to go over there and apologize since Bernard’s still after Bastet.”

All of them, even Mrs. Piron, started explaining why the person in question should not be him or her. This time, there was a knock on the front door. I looked at the cluster of people by the telephone. You never heard as much polite and respectful arguing in your life. Obviously, no one else was going to answer the door, so I did.

A large, tanned, and rugged man stood on the front step, a very paragon of rough and tough masculinity. Incongruously, he wore chauffeur’s livery and had his cap clutched between his hands.

“Miss Elaine Gray?” he asked.

“This is her residence, yes. Can I help you?”

“I have a message for her.” From inside his cap, he produced a small package. “Only for her,” he said, although I hadn’t reached for the package.

Well, I couldn’t let him in during the chaos. “Wait here, please.”

I went in and managed to ease Elaine away from the discussion. “There’s a chauffeur with a package and a message at the door.”

“Chauffeur?” She frowned, and then brightened. “Oh, that must be Pete.”

I followed her outside. She smiled, and the man smiled back shyly. “Good morning. You have something for me?”

“Yes, Miss.” He handed her the package and then stood there as she examined it, obviously willing to wait. She looked at him and, with a shrug, tore it open. I craned to see what was inside. The contents were my hairpins, the ones she’d dislodged and left on the pavement last night at Mr. Beck’s.

Pete said, obviously reciting a memorized message. “Mr. Killingsworth found these and gave them to Mr. Zimmerman to return to Dr. Putney. Mr. Zimmerman sends them with his compliments, and says he’ll give himself the privilege of joining you for lunch today. Miss Gray, I mean. At noon, after his morning meetings.” Seemingly relieved to be done with his difficult chore, he beamed, re-donned his cap, and tipped it to us. Then he strode back down the steps to the Rolls Royce parked on the street.

Elaine gazed at the pins lying in her hand. Her expression was opaque but, completely ignoring her lipstick, she bit her lower lip. As if that had been a cue, I opened and closed my mouth. Then, “Roger Zimmerman,” I said, feeling as if the world was crashing down around my ears. “I can’t believe that I forgot Roger Zimmerman.”

 

VI

 

Elaine looked at me, looked at the hairpins again, looked at the open front door, and her face went from opaque to determined. “All right,” she said. “That’s it.”

Grabbing my arm, she towed me inside to where George and Mrs. Piron were now trying to persuade Hannah to go and apologize to the nasty neighbor. Ignoring the conversation, she thrust the hairpins at Hannah. “Please put these in Dr. Putney’s room.” With the hand now free, she snagged George before towing both of us into the dining room. She let go of me, and said, “Sit.” I glared, so she added, “Please,” and I sat down in one of the chairs. Then she let go of George and stepped away from him.

He adjusted his suit jacket. “Is something wrong, Miss Gray?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Elaine said. “Wrong enough that I need a favor.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, voice cautious. “What?” You could tell he’d spent a lot of time in Hollywood.

“I need your car keys.” George looked surprised. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been this. “You can take the Packard. And I need one more thing.” She put a hand palm down on the breakfast table behind her. “Roger is coming along at noon. I want you to distract him. Keep him busy for a while.”

George gaped. Then he said, “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Sure you can,” Elaine said, but her words weren’t so much encouraging as exasperated. “We both know that you can. Aren’t you the best Publicity has to appoint and well suited to my household?”

“Um,” George said noncommittally, and then looked at me. “This doesn’t seem like such a good idea.”

“Better than the alternative.” Elaine started stalking back and forth, speaking as she paced. “George. You know I adore you as much as I could ever adore any self-confessed spy for the studio. However, if you do not do this tiny little favor for me, I will undoubtedly do something--” her voice smoldered “--bad in public.”

I was so busy watching George try not to squirm that I was taken by surprise when she stopped behind my chair and rested one hand on each of my shoulders. “Very, very bad,” she said, and spread her fingers out slowly across the neckline of my dress, just above the upper slopes of my breasts. I don’t know how the gesture looked, but I did know how it felt. My face must have been a picture.

George crumpled like tinfoil. He threw up both hands and said, “Okay, fine! I’ll leave my keys on the table with the hall telephone.” He fled.

“That’s not playing fair,” I told her. Her hands slid a little lower. “Do you, or don’t you, want me fit to be seen in public? Hair salons, for example, are very public.”

“Tough girl,” she said, with bone-melting approval. But she did remove her hands.

“Takes one to know one. I’ll get my purse.”

“Change into one of your usual outfits, too. We’ll meet back down here in thirty minutes.”

***

I wasn’t so much calm as in shock, but I did manage to get ready in time. As for Elaine, she used that half hour to transform herself. I could say that she’d changed her dress for a skirt, blouse, and jacket, fixed her make-up, rearranged her hair, and donned a hat, but I wouldn’t be doing justice to her skill. The woman who met me in the front hall was still beautiful, would still turn heads, but had lost the otherworldly perfection of the High Priestess. Instead she was a bright young matron who spent a lot of time parrying all the compliments at the annual banquet of the Lady Elks about how much she looked like Elaine Gray.

We went out to the street, where George’s car was parked in front of the house. No wonder he loved the Packard; he drove an old Ford sedan. I looked at the Ford, looked at Elaine, and decided to keep quiet. Instead I got in on the passenger side as Elaine got in behind the wheel.

“Now, then,” Elaine said, her reasonable tones like the solidified crust over a pool of lava, “I’ll call my hairdresser and make an appointment for tomorrow. Then we’ll go for a little drive and find some place to sit and talk. In private. With no interruptions.”

I didn’t point out that she could call her hairdresser from the house; I knew better than to suggest we go back in there right now. I did ask, “Where are we going?”

“Anywhere that’s not Hollywood.” She started George’s car.

We drove a short distance down Whitley towards Franklin and then pulled over by a restaurant where Elaine parked the car and got out to find a telephone. I also got out and looked up toward her house, back toward the hills, the Bowl, and the Hollywoodland sign. The view was quite pretty: all the vegetation was still a bit green from the winter rains. Perhaps we could go to a park. Then I frowned, shaded my eyes, and stared. Running toward me down the steep street, at a pace I would have thought impossible if I hadn’t seen it, was a golden something that could only be Bastet.

I wasn’t sure where she was going. She may not have been sure, either. Perhaps she was only enjoying her interval of freedom, and the chance to use all the speed with which her kind is born, on the straight and sloping stretch of road. In any case, I knew she had to be caught before she managed to get farther downtown and into deep trouble.

All these thoughts seemed to flash through my mind, but apparently my hands could keep up with my brain. I yanked off my glasses and raised them high, waving them overhead to reflect the bright sunlight. At the same time I called out, “Bastet!”

I don’t know if she saw the flashes or heard my voice, but something made her slow as she crossed the last intersection before she reached George’s Ford. An automobile horn blatted at her and was ignored. I had just enough time to yank the back door of the car open and throw my glasses inside. Bastet slowed even more, cornered with a scraping of claws on concrete and metal, and leapt into the back seat in pursuit of her new prey. I quickly closed the door behind her.

Although I’d thought she’d be indignant about the confinement, she seemed quite content to scrabble around on the back seat into a comfortable position -- I winced at what was probably happening to George’s upholstery -- and then settle to licking my glasses. As for me, I leaned against the car, trying to catch my breath. That was when I noticed something on the sidewalk, about half a block up the hill, glinting in the sun.

I quickly walked over to pick up whatever it was before another pedestrian came along, and it was just as well that I did. What I had in my hand was a diamond necklace.

In the pictures, Elaine would have come out and joined me right as I picked up the necklace. In real life, she was gone for another two minutes, time enough for her to return and find me back in the passenger seat.

Elaine paused by my side of the car. She studied me. Then she craned to look into the back at Bastet, who was now purring with her eyes half-shut, still in possession of my glasses. When she looked back at me, without a word, I held up the necklace. It was quite beautiful in the sunshine. Her eyes narrowed. “Uh-oh,” she said, “not mine.”

“Madame Zola’s prediction is fulfilled. I didn’t think all this expensive display was in your style.”

The next word she said was really rather rude. Then, with an air of resignation, she got into the driver’s seat and started the engine again. I let her pull out into the sparse traffic before I asked her, “Where are we going?”

“Where do you think?”

I didn’t grit my teeth. “You know I can’t see far without my glasses.”

“You’re right.” She sighed. “I’m not being fair. Back home, of course, to call Publicity.”

***

We drove back to the house. As we waited to turn off Whitley and onto Elaine’s street, I saw Bernard standing on the corner, obviously pretending to listen to a florid middle-aged man who was not only talking with his eyes shut but was melodramatically gesturing with both hands as he did so. Bernard noticed us, risked a covert wave and smile, and then went back to being an overdone portrait of respectful patience.

“Now we know why he didn’t catch up with Bastet,” Elaine said. “Mr. Tupper caught up with him.”

At the house, we used what was left of my glasses, the necklace, and gross flattery to lure Bastet up to my bedroom and lock her in. Elaine managed to retain the necklace, but I lost my glasses. I was wearing my spares when we went downstairs to use the telephone in the hall. Elaine told me later that this response was what all stars were taught. In a crisis, don’t call the police, don’t call a lawyer, and don’t call your doctor. Call the head of your publicity department, instead.

She dialed a number, and told the person on the other side, “Elaine Gray, for Mr. Stone. It’s important.” Then she waited.

Mrs. Piron, attracted by her voice, came into the hall from the kitchen. “Where are Hannah and George?” Elaine asked her.

“Hannah’s at the laundry, and Mr. George is locked in the library with Mr. Zimmerman. They’re not to be interrupted.”

“Oh?” Elaine asked, and checked her wristwatch. Then someone picked up on the other end. “Hello, D.J., darling. Not too bad, thanks, but I could be better. There’s this little problem involving a diamond necklace and a cheetah.”

Such an opening demanded quite a bit of explanation. I did notice that Mrs. Piron wasn’t surprised by Elaine’s side of the conversation. After a while, Elaine removed the receiver from her ear without hanging it up. “He’s dispatching flacks,” she told us.

“Ah,” I said, and Mrs. Piron nodded.

Elaine considered me. “Darling,” she asked, “would you mind checking if Roger and George are still busy in the library? Don’t bother knocking, just listen. Try the side door.”

“All right,” I said. As I left, I heard her ask Mrs. Piron, “Do you object to bribery?”

“Depends upon who’s bribing,” was her reply.

Wondering what Elaine was up to now, I went into the dining room. I paused at the library door but didn’t hear voices. Perhaps they’d removed to the sitting room upstairs? At that thought, I tried the knob, and the door opened. Just to be certain the room was empty, I glanced inside.

After a pause to blink, I closed the door as quietly as I could. Resisting the temptation to shift a chair in front of the door, I went back to Elaine.

She was still standing in the hall with the receiver cradled against her shoulder. Mrs. Piron had gone off somewhere. I said, “Roger is, in fact, quite distracted. As you suggested, George has given the job his all.” In spite of my best efforts, I could tell I sounded prim.

A flash of amusement brightened Elaine’s features and was gone. “I didn’t mean for him to go that far.”

“George is handsome, and one does use the tools to hand.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, and grinned. As I rolled my eyes, she said, “Hello?” into the receiver, and then started talking again.

Mrs. Piron arrived carrying a chair. She put it down, and Elaine sat without interrupting her conversation. “--no one except for Casey, my staff, and Bernard.” There was a pause, and I could just hear the someone on the other end say something with a rising inflection. “A carpenter working as my handyman. He’s related to my housekeeper.” More sounds and Elaine said, “If he had a real job, that would be true.” This time the gap was only long enough for a single word, and Elaine’s response of “Yes, he is, if that matters,” was rather frosty. Only because I was standing next to her could I see Mrs. Piron’s lips tighten.

Elaine had to interrupt the next monologue. “Yes, I understand the union is allergic to such company, but I happen to know that Bernard worked along Gower Gulch and at Mack Sennett’s back before everyone got so stuffy in this town. You’re the one who wants to sew him up tight. So you tell me how you’ll find him a decent job on the lot.” She listened for a while longer before flashing a smile at Mrs. Piron, who nodded and left. “All right, I’ll make sure of that. No, Casey’s no problem; I’ve told you that before. Mmmhmm. Thank you, darling. Yes, goodbye.”

She hung up the receiver and stood. “Whew. Maybe I’m not as eager to be bad as I thought I was.” With a sideways look at me, she grinned. “At least, not so publicly.” Picking up her hat from next to the telephone, where she’d set it down earlier, she said, “Let’s go.”

“Where? And what about the diamond necklace?”

“What diamond necklace?” she asked, as she slid the necklace neatly into the drawer of the small table on which the telephone sat. “You and I are going to lunch at the Desert Tea Room at Bullock’s. Then you have a date with their fashion salons.” She moved to check her hat in the hall mirror. “Coming?”

“Just a minute,” I said. “I want to make sure that side door is locked before the men arrive from the studio.”

The door to the library opened before I went back into the dining room. Mr. Zimmerman -- Roger -- came out into the hall. His suit might have been a little mussed, but otherwise you couldn’t tell that he’d recently been distracted. I had a suspicion that, if I’d gotten into the dining room, I would have found George in there sneaking off toward the kitchen.

“Elaine,” Roger said, spotting her and coming over to kiss her hand. “Good afternoon.”

“Hello, darling,” she said. As she took her hat off again, she added, quite calmly, “Sorry to sic George on you, but I had another decision to make before we talked today.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, “I think I know.” For some reason, he turned to me next. “Good afternoon, Cassandra.”

“Good afternoon, Roger.”

“Did you break your glasses?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

The front door opened, and Hannah came in, struggling with a number of dresses on hangers and looking peevish. Two men followed close on her heels, one with slicked-back hair and a pencil mustache, the other chewing on a toothpick. Hannah closed the door with her hip.

The first man said, “Miss Gray, we’re here from D.J.” He had the voice that launched a thousand encyclopedias door to door. The effect was ruined when he continued, as if to a four year old, “Everyone’s supposed to have left by now, so that we can pick up the goods.” The second man rolled his toothpick from the right side of his mouth to the left.

Roger turned away from me to examine the pair of publicity men, his expression looking as if he’d just found Rex the Wonder Dog in a corner vomiting on some sound equipment. The first man paled a bit. The second man rolled his toothpick from left to right.

“Do you need a hand with any of that, Hannah?” I asked her.

“No, Doctor. I’m on my way upstairs.”

Judicious, but too late. She was included in Roger’s thoughtful survey of the hall, as were George and Mrs. Piron, who’d probably come to find out what was happening now. They weren’t the only ones who were curious. Spotting the chair by the phone, Roger sat down and asked, “Would somebody care to explain to me exactly what is going on around here?”

Elaine looked around. “George, Hannah, Mrs. Piron, please take the rest of the day off. In fact, you’re off until tomorrow morning.”

All of them exchanged glances, but they didn’t argue. Mrs. Piron left with a small nod to Elaine that probably meant she’d corral Bernard, explain what was going on to the others, or more likely both. Then Elaine took a deep breath, drew herself up, and started a concise yet dramatic account of Bastet’s adventures.

To his credit, Roger’s only comment on the matter was a considering, “You know, that would make a pretty good scenario for a slapstick comedy.”

 

VII

 

After Elaine had explained the situation, we had to retreat to the library and let the men from the publicity department do their work. Elaine followed me in just as the first of them said, in an obvious excess of the desire to be ingratiating, “I’ll swap ties with you if you want, Mr. Zimmerman. There’s some sort of stain on that one.”

Her expression went rather stiff, but she managed to shut the door behind her and lock it. Then I had to lock the door to the dining room because Elaine had given way to a half-smothered fit of the giggles.

I rolled my eyes and then reluctantly smiled. “Do you need a glass of water?”

“Mmmhmm,” she managed to get out past her hands before giggling some more.

There was water in the carafe kept on a side table, so I poured a glass and brought it over to her. She took it, put it down on the lamp table next to the door, and kissed me.

“Mmph,” I said, or some such thing: in either case, a mistake. Her tongue was coaxing and I, as it happened, was in no state to resist being coaxed. I kissed her back until she freed her lips to nip and nuzzle at my jaw and ear.

I cleared my throat and she said softly, “Shhh. Quiet.” We’d ended up leaning against the door, her breasts warm against mine through our blouses, our legs in a tangle through our skirts, her hands stroking along my sides as if I were Bastet.

“This isn’t talking,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“No, but it is lovely.” Her own words, murmured against the curve where my neck joined my shoulder were almost too hushed to hear. But I could feel her lips move against my skin as she spoke.

“True.” We kissed some more, all wetness, heat, and little, liquid noises. When she pulled away, stepping back from me, I couldn’t help reaching out a hand toward her that she grasped to tow me along to the couch.

My head cleared somewhat on the trip. Elaine sat, but I moved to sit at the opposite end of the couch from her. She let me, but she also removed her shoes to sit with her knees tucked up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them, her expression mischievous.

“I’m still panicking,” I told her.

“I’m not, now that I’m sure that too many martinis didn’t gauze the lens of last night’s memories. You’re ready for this.” She twisted around, hunting in the drawer of the side table to come up with a tissue that she used to clean off her lipstick with languid thoroughness.

Realizing that I was watching in silent fascination, I gave my head a little shake and said, “I suppose it’s just as well that everything’s happening so fast. There’s no time for me to go into conniptions about unnatural corruption, or any blatherings of that sort.”

“Keep analyzing what’s happening, Doctor. I like it.” She wadded up another tissue and tossed it at me. “Although you can blather if you want to.”

I snorted. “I’d rather hear you blather for a while. Am I correct in thinking that Roger now expects you to refuse his proposal of marriage?” I took my turn to dab at my lips.

“It was intended to be a marriage of convenience, as much for him as for me. After all, there was no real reason not to marry again.”

Since I was still rubbing, I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.

“Harold?”

“Oh,” I said. “Um.”

“Dreams die hard, but they do die at last,” she retorted, but then relented. “Not your fault, of course. There was Jim, and I’m sure that threw you off the track. After all, I made assumptions about you with even less cause. You’re a better actress than I thought. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, Madame Zola.”

Then her eyes narrowed. “You’ve missed some smears on your face and neck.” She reached for more tissue. “I’ll get them.” I studied her with a mistrust born from experience. “No, I’ll be good. I promise.”

“All right, go ahead.” She knelt on the couch next to me and started cleaning up the results of her earlier efforts. Her fingers were caressing through the paper, and she still smelled ever so faintly of last night’s perfume. Trying to distract myself, I said, “Roger didn’t seem upset about the miscarried engagement.”

“No. I asked Angelo to telephone him this morning about the contract we’ve been working on.” At my look of inquiry, she shrugged. “I’m afraid of the slump just like anyone else. I’ll be signing to a seven year commitment split between three different studios, which means that Roger’s unit will get first call on my services when I’m on Everest’s lot. He likes me as a person, but he wants me as an actress. The actress, he’s getting.” Her cleaning was slowing. “I, for my part, will finally get some say about my scripts.” She stopped both her scrubbing and speaking to stare at me with her face bemused.

“What?”

“I’m having problems keeping my promise to be good.”

“That’s unusual?”

“Yes.” She dabbed distractedly at her own face, this time leaving lipstick rather than removing it. “I’m the initiate after all. The High Priestess.”

I considered. “So that’s not just unusual, but good, too.”

She smiled. “It is, isn’t it?” Her eyes seemed to darken, and at last I was in absolutely no doubt about what that expression meant. Reaching out with both hands, she removed my glasses, and then placed both them and the used tissues on the end table. “Kiss me again?”

It turned into more than a kiss, much more. In fact, this was to petting what Bastet was to a tabby kitten. Long minutes later, we were entwined together on the couch, its generous width still too narrow for what we were doing. The way my blood drummed in my ears and the heat burned between my thighs made me not care. Elaine was half beneath me, and I could touch her, taste her, and even bury my face against her to breathe in her scent as I had secretly yearned to do for so long.

By the time my mind cleared enough for me to realize where I was going, her blouse was unbuttoned and her brassiere was undone. Her skirt was also in disarray and my hand was on her thigh. It was the small, rough noise that she made when my fingers slid up past her garter belt that had brought me back to myself. I paused and pushed away a little. Elaine opened her eyes. Their expression was sultry, her face was flushed, and her lips were full and moist. I looked farther down. Her nipples were tight, dusky rose against the paleness of her breasts. I tried kissing the left one and then tentatively teased it with the tip of my tongue, tasting salt and skin. “Show-off,” she said softly. “Bet you don’t know what happens next.”

“I’d bet you’re wrong.” I stroked up to the silk and lace of her scanties. “I’d bet I’ve learned from myself.” As I spoke, I was slipping my fingers under the fabric. The lace was scratchy, but where I searched was liquid and silken. “What happens next is this.” Her eyes half-closed, and she shuddered. Having found my goal, I tried stroking, moving slowly from lush, wet heat to small, smooth hardness and back again. Then I focused my efforts.

“You win.” She caressed my lips, swept the hair back out of my face. “Keep going.”

I did, and managed to bring her to where she muffled words against my shoulder and clamped hard around my hand. My own breath was ragged, and something inside me seemed to clench and burn in sympathy as she said, “Casey,” and, “Yes, oh please, Casey.” Then her head went back, and her eyes were wild. Even while she panted as if she was running, even as she tightened and loosened against me, her hands gripped hard to keep me close.

Afterward, she twined her arms around me and languidly stroked my back through my blouse. I trembled a little, but still forced myself to sit up after a minute so that I wouldn’t squash her. Elaine was in complete, rumpled disarray, but she stretched with all her usual grace.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“Rumpled,” I replied, confused. My voice was low and throaty. “Happy, seemingly. Beautiful.”

“Very happy. And I love how you order your words. You still see Marie Elaine first.” Rising, she said, “Get a pillow.”

I blinked at her.

“You may need it.” Elaine slipped to her knees on the carpet, reached along the couch, grabbed a pillow that somehow hadn’t ended up on the floor, and handed it to me. Then she pushed gently on a knee with each hand. Thinking I understood, feeling rather shy, I spread them apart. She worked my skirt up and out of the way with a careful skill that was reassuring. I tried a smile as I lifted myself so that she could finish shifting fabric.

She returned a grin, which should have warned me. Tugging me forward, she leaned down and kissed the inside of my thigh. Then, to my surprise, her tongue flicked out and licked upward. Very soon afterward, I did need the pillow to muffle my noise. Elaine made it quite clear that she could worship more than a leading man with those lush lips of hers. She was a fine one to accuse me of being a show-off.

“Now how do I look?” she teased me afterwards, still on her knees.

She looked glorious. I had to glare at her point-blank until I caught enough breath to say, “You know I don’t care.”

“Uh-oh. Maybe we’d better go upstairs and give me a chance to ask that question again once I’m properly undressed.” Getting up onto her feet, she looked down and winced. “Dead stockings.” Reaching for a tissue, she wiped her lips one last time.

I thought about standing up, suppressed a groan, and did it anyhow. After retrieving my glasses and providing some first aid to my clothing, I said, “Marie Elaine Flot. Elaine Gray. Hey, lady, please pay attention.”

“Hmm?” She paused in collecting all the tissues to bring them along.

“I love you, and I’m in love with you. How could you be anybody but yourself and look anything but beautiful to me?”

She had to pick up all the tissues again when we were done kissing. But that little annoyance was nothing. Thank heavens the publicity men were gone when we finally got out of the library, given how I reacted when she told me what she thought of and felt about me. Elaine’s always preferred a dramatic setting for her passionate declarations. She chose to go into details halfway up the stairs. We almost fell over the banister.

***

Mrs. St. James wrote a touching article in _Screentime_ about the obviously impoverished fan visiting from Tulsa who’d found the diamond necklace lost by an elderly character actress and, without hesitation, returned it. The pictures of the police, the fan, and the actress together were wonderful, although I could have sworn I’d seen the fan in question before, taking measurements at Everest.

Bastet was annoyed enough at being locked in my bedroom to scratch up the furniture, which was a good excuse to move me into the bedroom next to Elaine’s. So Elaine was able to return Bastet to Miss Songaard with real regret. Three months later, Bastet chewed apart a topaz necklace that she was trying to carry off and was returned to Elaine without the least regret. Elaine used Bastet’s return as an excuse to buy a house in Beverly Hills, one modest for the neighborhood but with a larger yard than was customary in Whitley Heights. She defrayed part of the moving expenses by renting out her new gatehouse to a respectable friend who she could clear with all her publicity departments: me.

Hannah opened her own hair salon and passed along her job with Elaine to her younger sister. George was given an opportunity to work as an assistant producer in the primary production unit at Everest, where he claimed to do figuratively for the studio what he sometimes did literally for Roger Zimmerman. Eventually, he bought his own Packard. Mr. Piron got a job doing something intricate with clay figures, a job that no one had thought of unionizing yet. Seven years later, he helped to remedy that situation. Mrs. Piron kept working for Elaine, where she could depress all pretensions with a look.

The economy got much worse and then the economy got a lot better. Years later, a scenario about theft, chaos, and a big cat did make for a pretty good slapstick comedy, even if nobody thought so at the time. Eventually, the reign of the studios ended.

As for me, I accepted an offer from Tarzana College although I made sure to earn my tenure all by myself. Alas, my romance with a professor in the Department of Theater Arts never reached its fruition, to the disappointment of most of our fellow faculty. Jerry and I were remarkably undisturbed by this. We did coauthor a paper on the formation of the Keith and Albee theater chain and its economic effects on American theater, though.

Elaine still appears in the occasional film, these days as the elderly, glamorous matron or the kindly Mother Superior rather than the enigmatic seductresses and mysterious heroines that I watched as I yearned in my youth. Almost all of my students have seen one or two of her old movies. My colleagues speak of her work with respect. Our long-lasting friendship is never questioned, is held to be extremely respectable. Attitudes do change.

Attitudes do change. That’s the truism I ponder as Elaine sleeps next to me, her legs entangled with my own, on the nights that we share together in her bed. Attitudes change, and maybe someone, someday, will no longer need to shelter publicly in the shadow of a man to be acclaimed the High Priestess of Hollywood.

Madame Zola, too thoroughly entwined with the past and the present to read the cards clearly, refuses to predict.

**Author's Note:**

> The story was originally published commercially through a small press, but all rights have reverted to me, where they remain. The usual fandom, not-for-profit permissions apply. Given the obvious fannish influences and tropes, it seemed possible to post it here. I hope you enjoy!


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